This paper explores the cognitive difficulty of assessment tasks in six first year computing courses within an Information Technology (IT) degree. Bloom’s taxonomy is used as an analytical framework. A Bloom rating is calculated for each of the courses involved in the study and the results are presented and analysed. A wide variation in the cognitive level and style of assessment is revealed. These results are also compared to those from an earlier study and a reduction in the cognitive level of first year programming courses in this study is detected.